Postscript

Letters to the Editor

Tools

We Saw You, Ironically

To the Editor:

Congrats on another successful Best Of Memphis (September 26th issue). I read with much interest the staff picks, in particular, the category "Best Way To Turn a Silly Institution Into an Offensive One," in which the writer points out that the "see-and-be-seen" society photo rags are "so silly as to be innocuous" and a part of Memphis culture that "needs to be ditched -- and fast."

Then I flipped back to the "We Saw You" section of your publication, which features pictures from various parties and happenings around town. Perhaps I'm overlooking the irony here?

Mary Helen Randall

Editor, RSVP Magazine

Thick and Rich

To the Editor:

While frolicking through Italy last October with a cigarette in one hand and an espresso in the other, I overheard an American tourist proclaiming loudly that she could not wait to get back to the States to get some REAL coffee. I pitied the poor woman for her naiveté, until I saw that CK's won third place in the Best Of Memphis for coffee.

I am at this moment throwing my French press and demitasse cup in my luggage and seriously thinking of going back to the West Coast, where men are women, women are men, and the coffee is thick and rich like Anna Nicole Smith.

Either the CK's vote is a joke (in very poor taste, I might add) or a statement that says more about your voters than CK's itself. Has any sober person ever really tasted CK's coffee?

Julie Ray, Cafe Francisco

Memphis

More Stupidity

To the Editor:

I write this in response to Michael B. Conway's letter to the editor in the September 26th Flyer. It sounds to me that rather than taxing stupidity, Conway just wants to tax things that he doesn't like. Hey, Mike, cigarettes, Botox, tattoos, piercings, breast implants, cigars, underwear above the pants line, Jerry Springer, Crossing Over, televangelists, psychic friends, shoes that light up, and cell phones playing "Dixie" are all legal, and most all of these things involve some sort of tax already.

Just because they go across the grain of your way of thinking is no reason to label them all stupid. Some of these are not things I would associate myself with (especially the televangelists and psychic hotlines), but this is America, and just as all over the world, there are stupid people involved in almost every way of life and line of thinking. But here we have the right to pursue these things -- stupid or not.

Watch out, Mr. Conway, or the next thing you know, they'll be taxing stupid letters to the editor.

Keith Wood

Memphis

Heed Dr. King

To the Editor:

In "A Way Of Life" (Sports, September 26th issue), Ron Martin writes that "the violence that permeates American culture is finding its way onto the field." The focus was on violence as a way of life in America.

But we all know that it is a way of life in many other places. It would not be that way if people would only heed what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his 1964 book, Why We Can't Wait: "Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh."

Arthur H. Prince

Memphis

NoT Remote

To the Editor:

I'd like to address several points made in Jackson Baker's Politics column ("Raucous Party," September 5th issue). In the article, state Rep. Kathryn Bowers was quoted as saying that members of the Shelby County Democratic Coordinated Campaign Committee (the current Shelby County Democratic Party chair and four past chairs) are "too remote from actual voting Democrats and their concerns."

I'd like to point out that Gale Jones Carson, the party's current chair, and former party chairs John Farris and I are members of the Tennessee Democratic Party, and we have to run for office every four years. In August, Carson received 11,243 votes, Farris 7,738 votes, and I received 22,389 votes. Rep. Bowers, who has been in office for almost 10 years, only received 4,071 votes from a registered-voter population of 30,041 in her district. Unlike Rep. Bowers, chairs of the Democratic Party have to represent and touch Democrats countywide.

Sidney Chism

Former Shelby County Democratic Party Chair

Memphis

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

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